


Love Bites

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Series: A Very Supernatural Starsky & Hutch [7]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Humans Pretending To Be Vampires, Hurt/Comfort, Leashes, M/M, Minor Injuries, Murder, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Supernatural Elements, Tag to The Vampire, Vampires, Werewolves, Werewolves Pretending To Be Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-02-27 06:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18733255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: “Zebra-Three, Zebra-Three, come in. Zebra-Three, respond.”Hutch sits back on his haunches and howls, the predetermined signal to get Starsky’s attention—it gets basically everyone’s attention, amidst all the barking at the dog park. Primly, Hutch picks up his ball and goes to wait by the gate.“Whups, that’s me,” Starsky says, getting up. He jogs after Hutch, rolling his eyes as he reaches down to clip the leash on the collar Hutch is wearing because he has to show his immunization tags to be at the dog park. “No need to be so dramatic—”“Zebra-Three, this is dispatch, please respond.”“Huh!” Starsky pushes the gate open and tugs the leash just a tiny amount. “Guess that’s our cue, come on, Dutch.”Oh, and Hutch hates the leash, too. It’s really more for show, as is the collar, but it’s still demeaning. And this whole thing wouldn’t be half as annoying if Starsky didn’t enjoy it so much!Although, when Starsky opens the door to let him hop in, and picks up the radio to answer with one hand while scratching the back of his neck with the other, Hutch decides he doesn’t really completely hate this job.





	1. Chapter 1

Starsky throws the ball for probably the four hundredth time and wonders if this is going to get anywhere. Trying to track down a suspect at the dog park seems ludicrous bordering ridiculous, not least because they’re stuck doing this at odd times, like early morning, when he can actually take a wolf’s shape, but they’ve made more of less. 

“I’m still not sure why we couldn’t have just gotten a real dog,” Starsky mutters to his partner, before throwing the tennis ball again. The other dogs in the park seem to be nervous around Hutch, giving him his space. When Hutch returns yet again with the ball, Starsky takes it back. “Maybe a real dog would be tired by now. How long can you keep this up?”

He throws it again, wondering if Hutch the person will be sore later after all the chasing Hutch the Wolf has done today. 

Hutch raises an eyebrow, and hates how  _ interested  _ he is in chasing the goddamned tennis ball. He also hates that they’re doing this job for the Narcos basically for free—even though Hutch knows it's because dogs can’t sniff out this new brand of odorless coke, but wolves can. It’s still beneath him. 

“Heyyy there,” says a pretty blonde, sidling up to Starsky holding the tiniest dog Hutch has ever seen. It whines and barks at him, and Hutch is as unimpressed by the dog as he is with the woman’s attempts to flirt with Starsky. “What a beautiful dog you have there! Is she friendly?” 

It takes everything in Hutch not to growl like he understood that. Or to eat the mouthful of pomeranian that’s yipping at him like he cares. 

“Sugar here  _ loves  _ big dogs, can they say hello?” 

“Uh,” Starsky reaches out and puts his hand on Hutch’s head. “Yeah, I… let me just…”

Pretending to pet Hutch, Starsky leans down to his ear. “Don’t you dare eat that dog, I don’t care if it would fit in your mouth.”

If Starsky keeps a hand on the scruff of Hutch’s neck just in case, it’s because he’s seen what Hutch can do to rabbits at least once. “So, your dog’s name is Sugar? Wow, she’s awful cute. This is, uh, Dutch.”

_ Dutch?! _

Hutch doesn’t growl, but he shifts enough to put one huge paw on Starsky’s sneaker and just press down with all his weight. He also hates how relaxed Starsky’s hand gripping his scruff makes him, so leaning on his foot is payback. 

Sugar is still yipping at him like she’s trying to strike up a conversation or start a fight, but Hutch ignores her: he’s focused on “Brenda,” who won’t stop smiling at Starsky and asking him if he comes here often. 

“Maybe Sugar and Dutch could have playdates or something!” 

_ Dutch! _ Hutch is going to kill him, especially when Starsky smiles back. 

“That sounds wonderful,” Starsky says, grimacing a little as he tries to keep his smile working. “Say, do you and Sugar come here often? I wonder if you’ve noticed any unusual characters around here?”

“Well, I don’t know what you mean by that,” she says, and Starsky tries throwing the tennis ball for Hutch again. “Sugar and I come by all the time, don’t we Sugar? And there’s lots of people.”

Hutch considers ignoring the ball, but he knows where Starsky sleeps, and that ball isn’t going to catch itself—probably some other dog will get its slobber all over it, and Hutch can’t let that happen after all...

“I saw a couple of guys the other day that didn’t have a dog with them,” Starsky says, as if still making small talk as Hutch runs off. “I just thought that was kinda strange.”

“Nope, nothing!” she says, too cheerfully. 

It’s a good thing Hutch did run after the ball, it turns out, because on this side of the park he can hear the radio in Starsky’s car squawking that familiar summons: “Zebra-Three, Zebra-Three, come in. Zebra-Three, respond.” 

Hutch sits back on his haunches and howls, the predetermined signal to get Starsky’s attention—it gets basically everyone’s attention, amidst all the barking. Even Sugar doesn’t want to hang out with him now. 

Primly, Hutch picks up his ball and goes to wait by the gate. 

“Whups, that’s me,” Starsky says, getting up. “Nice to meet you Brenda!”

He jogs after Hutch, rolling his eyes as he reaches down to clip the leash on the collar Hutch is wearing because he has to show his immunization tags to be at the dog park. “No need to be so dramatic, you coulda at least pretended to like Sugar—”

“Zebra-Three, this is dispatch, please respond.”

“Huh!” Starsky pushes the gate open and tugs the leash just a tiny amount. “Guess that’s our cue, come on Dutch.”

Oh, and Hutch hates the leash, too. It’s really more for show, as is the collar, but it’s still demeaning. And this whole thing wouldn’t be half as annoying if Starsky didn’t  _ enjoy  _ it so much!

Although, when Starsky opens the door to let him hop in, and picks up the radio to answer with one hand while scratching the back of his neck with the other, Hutch decides he doesn’t really completely hate this job. 

“Zebra-Three, hold for Captain Dobey.” 

“Starsky! You’re being assigned a new case!” Dobey shouts without very much of a ‘hold.’ “Make sure Hutchinson stays out of uniform—” this is code for ‘as a wolf’— “because we’ll need his nose on this. Vic’s name is Honey Williams, and it looks like the guy who killed her is some nut thinking he’s a vampire.”  

“Cap, what about the narcotics case?” Starsky asks, fingers getting a little more tense on the back of Hutch’s neck at the mention of ‘vampire.’ 

“Forget about that! I’ll put Sally on it, to monitor the area,” Dobey barks. “Report to the strip club on the corner of 9th and Sunset, and be quick about it!”

“Did he say strip club?” Starsky wonders, and then he gives Hutch a cheeky grin as he hangs the radio back up. “And you gotta keep your paws on....”

Hutch rumbles in begrudging contentment. The car is warm, and smells like Starsky (or Starsky smells like it), and except when he has to shift gears, Starsky keeps one hand on the back of his neck, scratching under that itchy collar, so it could be worse. 

…

At the crime scene, Starsky puts a K-9 vest on Hutch, which, though it doesn’t quite fit around his massive chest, is enough to fool the other uniforms into thinking Hutch belongs here. 

“Hey, Sergeant! When’d they put you on K-9 duty?” Morris asks, friendly enough. “And what do we even need a K-9 here for, anyway?” 

His partner, Freeman, less interested in small talk, shows Starsky the body, splayed out on the steps, though covered by a blanket. “Coroner’s here, so whenever you’ve got what you need…” 

“Thanks, guys,” Starsky says, looking over the scene first, before he has a look at the body. “Dobey said ‘vampire’ on the radio, what do you guys think about that?”

They’d had first eyes on the scene after all. Starsky lets go of Hutch, supposing he can sniff around if there’s anything unusual, especially if it’s maybe  _ really _ a vampire, which makes Starsky’s skin crawl. 

“Well there’s two puncture wounds in her neck,” Morris says. “Probably just some crazy guy, watches too many horror movies.”

“Let’s you and me hope,” Starsky jokes back, and goes over to have a look at the victim’s neck. 

Hutch sniffs around, confused. Vampire stench is usually pretty obvious, for one, but here it’s barely noticeable, like a vampire just walked past the area recently rather than killed someone here, and two, the two neat puncture wounds on the girl’s neck look nothing like a real vampire bite, which even he can’t tell from a wolf or shark bite sometimes. 

So...if a vampire, a very  _ weird  _ one. Or else, trying, nearly successfully, to throw them off the scent. He sniffs around some more to make sure. 

“There’s bruising on her neck, too. We can have the crime lab check for prints, in case she was strangled,” Morris says, and looks down. “Hey, I thought those guys only sniffed for drugs? Come here, pooch.” 

He bends down and offers Hutch his hand, but Freeman hits his shoulder. “That dog is  _ working _ , Dave. You’re not supposed to bother him.” 

“Well, he’s trained as a cadaver dog, too,” Starsky explains, noting the bruising on her neck, and the two puncture marks. She looks pale, too. Maybe she  _ was _ drained of blood. “He can actually sniff out all kinds of stuff. But I tell you what he’s  _ really _ good at finding.”

Both the other officers look intensely interested as Starsky puts the sheet back over the body.  So Starsky grins, and offers the punchline. “Bacon. C’mon boy, I gotta go talk to the manager inside.”

Starsky whistles for Hutch to come with him, figuring he ought not to let his partner out of his sight with two patrol officers eager to distract him. He knows how complacent Hutch gets in wolf form when someone—anyone—scratches the back of his neck.

Of course the manager didn’t see anything, or hear anything, except, maybe, a scream, which he thought was the TV, at around four in the morning. The first tenant to leave the building in the morning was the one who found the body. 

Hutch doesn’t follow the conversation too well, and doesn’t smell anything interesting in here except for a few other pets and someone cooking steak and eggs for breakfast. Hutch already wants another breakfast, and whines softly at Starsky’s leg, licking his hand. Bad behavior for a police dog, but this guy doesn’t have to know that. 

On the way out, Hutch thinks maybe he smells real-vampire-smell, but it’s a whiff on the air, so faint that he almost thinks he imagined it. That’s a little weird, itself. He’ll have to see what Starsky thinks. 

Outside the Coroner has arrived, and Morris and Freeman are finishing up their paperwork. They hand the yellow slips to Starsky, since he’ll be taking over the investigation. 

“Hey, where’s Hutchinson, today?” Morris asks. 

“You guys have a fight?” Freeman teases. 

“He’s off working that cocaine thing,” Starsky says, because it’s not strictly untrue. “But I’m sure this will take priority, once Dobey gets through to him on the radio. Thanks, fellas. Hope your next catch is a little less grisly.”

The Coroner collects the body, and Starsky stays long enough to oversee the photography, before filling out the paperwork and joining Hutch back in the car. “Let’s find someplace you can change out and tell me what you think about this case, huh? I got the name of the dance instructor, too, just in case.”

He pulls in at a gas station, and grabs the bag with Hutch’s clothes before locking the both of them into the bathroom and reaching down to take the collar off of Hutch. “This gets weirder every time, I think.”

“I almost wouldn’t mind if it were a kinky thing,” Hutch says, once he has lips, and laughs. He gets up off the floor and scrambles into his clothes, careening into Starsky for a kiss as he hops into his pants. “And I’m beginning to think you losing my underwear again is  _ your  _ kink!” 

“ _ You _ packed the bag, buster,” Starsky accuses. “If there’s no underwear in it it’s because you didn’t put it in. Besides, I think you look rather dapper in a collar with all your immunization tags.”

“I was the handsomest dog in the park. You know Brenda was only into you because of me.” Hutch laughs, his earlier annoyances forgotten, or else he wasn’t really that annoyed. Maybe the wolf is more serious than he is. Starsky takes the bag once Hutch has emptied it, and sticks the leash and collar into it. 

“Okay, so, I have some good news and bad news about what I smelled.” Hutch sighs, contemplating the soft flannel shirt Starsky brought him. “Dobey’s not going to like it.”

“ _ I  _ don’t like it,” Starsky says, with a reflexive gesture toward his neck. “Vampires make me nervous, huh? All those teeth. I mean, as a wolf, you gotta lotta teeth too, but I trust you.”

“Thanks,” Hutch says, just a little sarcastic, and leans in to graze his teeth over Starsky’s throat before kissing him just under his ear. “Anyway, we’re not dealing with a vampire, here.”

Starsky glances out of the door before they head out, making sure there’s no one to see them both walk out of a one-stall men’s room, not that he cares, just that he doesn’t want anybody looking at them too closely, to protect Hutch’s secret. 

“I didn’t smell any vampire on the victim, or—not  _ enough _ ,” Hutch says, under his breath until they get to the safety of the Torino. “A vampire might have been  _ around _ , but the murderer was a human. I’ve got the scent, so if we meet them, I’ll know, but we’ll still need something that will hold up in court. Let’s check out this dance place, interview a few witnesses.” 

In the car, Hutch waits until Starsky turns the engine over. 

“That was the  _ good  _ news,” he reveals. “Bad news is, it  _ could  _ be a vampire, but one powerful enough to mask his presence.” 

Starsky looks at Hutch for a long minute. “So, this is…vampire  _ adjacent. _ How do we stop that?”

He’s already doing math in his mind about crucifixes and garlic and whatever else it’s going to take to keep it away from him. He gets the impression that they don’t get along well with werewolves, which is good because knowing that they’re real has done a number on Starsky’s worldview. He starts taking them toward the dance studio, with a glance at Hutch. 

“How does somebody become a vampire, anyway? Or is it like you guys, and you’re just born one?” he asks, fluffing his jacket collar a little higher over his neck. 

“You definitely have to be bitten,” Hutch says, and laughs. “Being undead is hell on a guy’s sperm count, so, no, you can’t be born a vampire.” 

He glances over, knitting his brow a little suspiciously. “Starsky, you aren’t  _ worried _ , are you? You weren’t worried about Forest, and you know I’ll smell a vampire coming from a mile off and protect you.” 

“No I’m not worried, why would I be worried?” Starsky says, defensively. “I mean at least I know a Werewolf can take a vampire after all that mess with Forest, but uh, in my defense, that was pretty bad, that whole thing.”

Hutch grimaces. That  _ was  _ bad. “Hey, look, I’m sorry. It’s alright to be worried. Guess I’m a little worried, too.” 

Starsky reaches out across the seat and takes Hutch’s hand, squeezing his fingers. “What do I do if they have wolfsbane or something?”

“You and me  _ both  _ are running the other way, partner. Wolfsbane is poisonous to humans, too, remember?” Hutch grins, and squeezes Starsky’s fingers. “But like I said, probably it’s some weird copycat, someone with a fetish who wants to make the death look like a vampire death. Right? Just a perfectly normal homicide.” 

It’s not funny, but they have to joke about it sometimes, or go crazy themselves. 

“Right, normal,” Starsky says, but he doesn’t really sound convinced. Well, they can go see whatever is up with the dance studio, and maybe someone will have something to say about the sort of people that Honey hung around with. Starsky hates to see the sorts of crimes that happen to ladies who do the kind of work she did. It seems unfair, that there’s more risk involved in something that should make people more relaxed.


	2. Chapter 2

They pull up outside the dance studio, and Starsky turns the engine off. “So, what else do you know? Think you can pick up the scent of the person who actually did it?”

“Yeah, if we meet him,” Hutch says. “But that doesn’t mean we have a case. So, normal police work.” 

He squeezes Starsky’s shoulder encouragingly. “And if I get a whiff of vampires, you’ll be the first to know.” 

Inside the dance studio, Hutch immediately recognizes several scents: one, the victim spent a good deal of time here; and two, her murderer spent a lot of time here. So they knew each other—unfortunately not uncommon in homicides. 

Hutch grabs Starsky’s elbow and taps his nose as they proceed. 

They meet the dance instructor leading a class of girls, leaning heavily on a cane. Starsky shows his badge. “Mr. Nadasy, we’d like to ask you a few questions about one of your dancers. Miss Honey Williams?”

The man turns around, small of stature and perhaps once a dancer, but there’s a manic look in his eye that Starsky doesn’t like. He tries to get an unobtrusive look at the man’s teeth as he talks, but they look pretty normal. 

“Oh yes, she was a fine dancer,” he says, hobbling toward them with his cane.

“You’ve already been informed about her murder, then?” Hutch presses, but the man makes some excuse about being her emergency contact in town. Hutch frowns, buying that—for now—but not sure he buys the cane. Either it’s a fake or if his nose is lying to him. The problem is this man just doesn’t look capable of murdering an athletic young woman, but the  _ scent  _ is unmistakable. 

“Do you mind telling us where you were last night, Mr. Nadasy?” 

The man looks haughty, completely unimpressed with them (reminding Hutch a little of his father). “I was at home, alone. I don’t go out much since the death of my beloved wife.” 

This is meant to sting, like  _ they’re  _ at fault for bringing it up, as Nadasy glances up at a painting of a beautiful ballerina wistfully. 

“This is her?” Hutch asks, wondering if he can determine if the cane is a fake without a lawsuit. She at least doesn’t look obviously like the victim (dark hair instead of dark blonde), which would of course have been too easy. 

“How long ago did you lose your, uh, wife, Mr. Nadasy?” Starsky wonders, looking up at the painting. He finds this whole situation weird. He’s never met anyone with a painting of their dead wife instead of a picture, and the fact that it looks like a creepier version of a black velvet Elvis painting doesn’t help the case.

“It was years ago now,” Nadasy says, dramatically. He turns to the girls still trying to dance, and obviously listening in. “That’s it for today, girls, thank you!”

As they file out, Starsky leans in over to Hutch. “This guy creeps me out.”

“He should, he smells like the murderer,” Hutch whispers, and then they're alone. “You want to be good cop out bad cop?”

“I’ll take good cop, I don’t want this creeper mad at me,” Starsky says. 

Starsky straightens up and they follow him into an office. “Can you tell us anything about Honey? Anything that might help our investigation?”

Nadasy eyes them both and then shakes his head. “She was a talented dancer, but I heard she put that talent to use in a place of ill-repute. Such a shame, especially given the end she came to…”

“So would you say you disapproved of her life choices?” Hutch presses, getting up in the guy’s face. “ _ How _ angry does that make you?” 

“I say—” the man begins. 

Hutch reveals, then, barely, a hint of wolf-teeth—it was enough to reveal himself if the guy knew what to look for, but in mundane humans it tended to register as just a really scary grin.

“Good God, man, are you a werewolf?” the man asks, dropping his cane. 

Okay, well that worked. 

“I don’t know, are you a vampire? Or do you just pretend to be one late at night to scare girls—?” 

“What? No! I—I mean, I know  _ about  _ vampires, I—” The man looks pretty scared now, turning to Starsky for help. 

“—And maybe things last night went a little far?” 

“How far? Far enough that you left that girl’s dead body outside of a strip club?” Starsky presses, his tone a little softer, a little more level. He reaches out and puts a hand on Hutch’s chest. “Maybe, if it was an accident, you should come down to the station and give a statement. You can get help, legal representation, counselling. But what you did doesn’t just affect you and that girl.”

Starsky pats Hutch once, like giving the signal to back off. “Sometimes if you toy with the supernatural, Mr. Nadasy, it can come back and toy with you. And if you’re not really a vampire, you’re gonna get some attention you don’t really wanna have, right?”

“Look, I—I didn’t kill her!” the man wails. 

“Then you won’t mind coming down to the station to answer a few questions, right?” Hutch asks, easing off at Starsky’s signal. This guy doesn’t look like he’s faking, but if he is—or was—a professional performer, who knows? 

“O-of course,” he says, and looks like he’s thinking about picking his cane up off the floor, or wondering if the jig is up so completely that it doesn’t matter. 

Hutch sighs, rolls his eyes a little, and bends down to pick up the cane for him—allowing Nadasy the perfect angle to kick him in the head. 

Hutch goes down, seeing stars, and Starsky shouts his name, but the man is already running, sprinting like only an athlete can, out of the building. 

Starsky pauses only long enough to check on Hutch—dizzy but whole—before he goes sprinting after the guy, chasing him like only Starsky with an injured partner can. Nadasy has the advantage of home territory, however, and Starsky can only hope to outrun him, but when he finally reaches the bottom of the stairs and considers all the exits, he has to admit defeat.

He kicks a trash can in frustration, before heading back upstairs to check on Hutch again, this time touching him more tenderly. “You okay? I lost that jerk, who’d have guessed he was such a fast little weasel!”

“Well, at least we know the cane is fake.  _ Ow _ ,” Hutch says, rubbing the back of his head. He grabs hold of Starsky for more emotional stability than physical. “Damn it, okay. I'm okay. Let me see if I can track his scent…”

Starsky doesn’t stop touching Hutch, anyway, helping him to his feet. “Boy he really clocked you good, partner. You got a goose egg coming up.”

“I’m okay, Starsk.” 

Unfortunately, the man's smell is everywhere, since this was his place of work, so there aren't any promising leads. “Maybe we should stake out his house or…”

Hutch stops mid-sentence, catching a whiff of vampire again, so brief and faint he almost considers not mentioning it to Starsky, who's worried enough already.

“He probably doesn't even have a house. Don’t Vampires live in crypts?” Starsky wonders, having the heebie jeebies. “You shoulda seen the way that guy practically disappeared. What a creep. Come on partner, let’s get some ice on your head, then we’ll see if this guy has a current address that isn’t in a cemetery.”

“I'm okay,” Hutch says again, but is glad to let Starsky lead the way. “Anyway, I'm telling you,  _ he's  _ not the vampire. But I thought I smelled one by the locker rooms. So we maybe do have a creep on our hands.”

“I’m positive we do, that painting gives me the heebies,” Starsky says, passing over a quarter when they find the soda machines. 

They get a soda from the machine, which Hutch can hold against his head and give to Starsky to drink when it's luke-warm. “Let's sweep this place, first. See if we can find his address, or anything weird.”

And, since they're alone in the building, Hutch pulls Starsky into a kiss that takes him a bit by surprise. “You don't think I'd let anything happen to you, do you?”

“Funny, I feel the same way about you,” Starsky says, but he relaxes some with Hutch’s arms around him. “Then again, you just got your ass kicked by a guy with a cane.”

“ _ Hey _ ,” Hutch laughs. “He was faking.” 

He returns the embrace anyway. “Maybe I should get some garlic, huh? A crucifix?”

Hutch pulls back, eyeing Starsky sternly. “Starsky. We’re not even dealing with a vampire here! That guy was a human. And even if we were dealing with a vampire, garlic doesn’t ward them off, they just don’t like it. They just don’t like any strong flavors or smells except blood.”

He shrugs. 

“The crucifix might work. Any holy symbol, really.” Then he sputters, and shakes Starsky by the shoulders. “But we’re not dealing with a vampire!” 

“You keep saying that, like you’re so sure,” Starsky argues, tone raising as he tries to keep his worry in check. “I can deal with everything  _ but _ vampires, and you keep smelling one! Werewolves don’t bother me. Ghosts are okay because they can’t turn you into a ghost, right?”

“Actually…” 

“Well, okay, they  _ can _ but I don’t gotta live with it. Come on. Let’s go see if Huggy can’t give us the lowdown on where we might find vampire groupies.”

Hutch keeps a straight face until Starsky glares at him, and then he laughs, patting Starsky’s chest. “Sure, okay. We’ll see what Huggy knows when we’re done here.” 

They do find Nadasy’s office, and confiscate his files, calling in the address listed as ‘home’ to have someone stake it out until they can get there. But they don’t find anything else interesting, and Hutch doesn’t smell vampire again. 


	3. Chapter 3

“For $7.50 I’ll give you a complete vampire protection kit,” Huggy tells them gleefully. “Hammer and stake, crucifix to make any Christian vampire cringe in terror, and a garlic wreath for all the rest of the denominations.” 

“ _ Huggy _ ,” Hutch says, grabbing Starsky’s hand before he can reach for his wallet. “Stop putting us on.”

“You got this in Star of David?” Starsky asks, reaching out to finger through the dangling necklaces, already digging his wallet out with his other hand. “Hutch, he could be on to something, here. It can’t hurt to be prepared, right? I mean, after everything with you two, I know Dracula was a real guy. I wouldn’t want to meet that guy  _ unprepared _ .”

“Hey, I got it in all denominations,” Huggy answers, passing Starsky the charm as he hands over the money. 

Starsky immediately starts slinging the garlic around his neck. “Thanks, Hug. Good to have someone who understands.”

“Starsky, man, that reeks,” Hutch huffs, turning away from the garlic, but he grabs Starsky’s wallet-hand, trying to stop him again until they’re playing a game of handsy. “Huggy, he’s got a perfectly good star of David at home, are you really going to take his money?” 

“Hey, last I heard, dragons don’t give anything away,” Huggy says, eyes flicking gold. 

Hutch throws up his hands, releasing Starsky to point accusingly at Huggy. “Whatever. Do whatever. But you don’t have to ride around with him smelling like an Italian restaurant all day. At least the stake will be useful—only, because, you know, stabbing  _ anyone  _ in the heart is usually pretty deadly.” 

Starsky pays the eight bucks and tells Huggy to keep the change, hanging the necklace around his neck. “I don’t suppose you know any place where vampire wannabes hang out, Hug? Hutch keeps smelling the real thing, but the creep we tracked down today seems to be a faker.”

“Well, they tend to be night owls,” Huggy explains, leaning back on the counter. “There’s two or three all-night clubs, solid fakes in there. You know the kind, pretenders to the throne.”

“Weird,” Hutch laughs, before he can hold back. “What is with people wanting to be vampires? Why don't they ever want to be something cool?”

“Like a werewolf?” Huggy asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean like a  _ dragon _ , or anything  _ but  _ a bloodsucker,” Hutch replies. “But vampires are all the rage, I guess. Maybe the skinny pale thing is hot. Weird fetishists. Anyway. Yes, I know the type.”

“You’re one to talk,” Huggy says, delighted.

Hutch ignores this, and levels with Huggy. “I suppose you swindling my partner out of eight bucks isn't enough for you to tell us where these places are?”

“Well, it’s a start,” Huggy says, putting on the smooth. “Besides, your partner got some fine, quality items I’m sure he’ll be very happy with. Now, if you wanna lay down some real cash, I can part with some real information…”

“ _ Quality—? _ ” Hutch begins. 

“Nevermind, Hug,” Starsky says, sensing his partner’s rising blood pressure. “We can start with this clown’s house. Thanks again!”

Hutch lets himself be escorted from The Pits before he gets annoyed enough to do something mean, like tell Starsky he doesn’t need a hammer when he could use his head, or stupid, like pick a fight with a dragon. And here he thought  _ he  _ was supposed to be the level-headed one! Which, he is, level-headed enough not to fall for one of Huggy’s scams. 

He sighs, letting it go. Sort of.

“Okay, can we compromise on the garlic somehow? It’s makin’ me sick, Starsk. I’ll take you for Italian food tonight, and we can go to that place that has the baked clove of garlic to serve with the bread—if you just leave  _ that _ —you could go hang it in your house!” Hutch suggests. 

“I’ll put it in the trunk,” Starsky compromises, except for one head which he tucks in the glove compartment. Just in case. “See, look, it’s already working on you.”

Starsky winks at Hutch as they run down the guy’s address, and find what’s unsurprisingly an old looking Victorian-style house, which seems completely incongruous in the surroundings. Starsky leans on the wheel and peers up at it. It looks like the home of the Addams Family. “Who builds this crap in California?”

The house appears to be empty, but Starsky suspects that’s just part of the aesthetic. However, just as he’s about to get out to investigate, the radio crackles to life again.

“Zebra-Three, Zebra-Three, respond.”

Both Starsky and Hutch reach for the handset at the same time, but Starsky gives way with a ‘you go ahead’ gesture and a smirk. 

Hutch takes Starsky’s hand, instead, grinning as he squeezes, and swipes the radio with his right hand. “Zebra-Three, go ahead.” 

“We have a 10-67 on 8th and Buena Vista Drive, that’s a dead body reported at 8th and Buena Vista.” 

Hutch takes his finger off the button as he looks at Starsky. “Shit. That’s right near the dance school.” He speaks back into the receiver: “10-4, we are en route.” 

He has to let go of Starsky’s hand to let him shift gears and put the light on top of the car, and curses under his breath. “8th and Buena Vista, you heard that?”

“Yeah,” Starsky says tightly, and puts the pedal down, turning the car around on a tight axis for such a long vehicle, peeling out in the direction indicated as Hutch turns on the siren. They head for the intersection, with Starksy’s stomach sinking some. “You think that guy got away and immediately killed somebody again?”

His fingers tighten on the wheel. It won’t happen again, if he has anything to say about it. 

...

They arrive at the crime scene—an alleyway behind a dance shoes store—to a scene very much like the one they saw this morning. The girl is pale, her face fixed into a look of horror, and her neck looking like a TV-vampire had gone after her, with the same barely-there bruising as before. Hutch checks his watch, but he knows it’s too early to change, though he misses the wolf’s nose. 

“I can’t  _ believe  _ we let him get away,” Hutch growls. “I should have scented harder. I’m gonna do that now. See if you can get a hold of the coroner, if they have a cause of death on that first victim yet.” 

“Yeah,” Starsky says, clipped. He’s just as mad at himself, as he goes to examine the body. There’s something unnatural about the position of the neck in this case, and Starsky directs the paramedics to check, and confirms his suspicion.  _ What kind of vampire has to break the neck of their victim? _

Nothing about this case makes sense. Starsky gets on the phone at a phone booth and calls the coroner, both to let him know he’s sending another body up and to get the information Hutch asked for. He hangs up the phone even more confused, before going to track down Hutch. “First victim died of strangulation and was drained of blood shortly postmortem. This one’s got a broken neck. Is it possible that the vampires are looking into this themselves? I’m sure as heck confused, partner.”

Hutch's news is even worse: he scents Nadasy here, but only vaguely, this time. The vampire scent is  _ stronger _ , but this looks even  _ less  _ like a vampire kill than the previous victim. He holds for several seconds longer before he realizes Starsky needed a reply. 

“Yeah, I—me, too.” He sighs, hoping he wasn't going to have to worry Starsky more, but, “Definitely smell vampire here, but  _ that  _ is not the vampire M.O.” 

He rubs the back of his neck: he can’t believe he’s talking about a homicide victim as “that.” 

“How do we get to the bottom of it?” Starsky wonders, before he signals that the ambulance can take her to the morgue. “I want this guy off the streets before anybody else gets dead.”

“Right.” Hutch takes a deep breath, and starts going through the woman’s personal effects—her purse, which still has a great deal of money in it, and, lo and behold, her checkbook reveals a payment to the dance studio. He points it out to Starsky. “This is a nightmare. I want to talk to the Captain, and see if the vampire council is on this. They’re thugs, but I think even this is a bit much for them.” 

He touches Starsky’s back, and when Starsky actually  _ jumps _ , still spooked, at least he gets a good laugh out of it. 

…

“If I’m not paying you to use the good nose God gave you, Hutchinson, what the heck am I paying you for?! I’ve got two dead women in less than twelve hours, and you come here asking if someone else will take care of this for you?!” 

“Cap, I—” 

“And you, Starsky! If you ain’t using the brain God gave you, what am I paying  _ you  _ for?!”

“Cap, I almost had him,” Starsky says, defensively. “I’m sure…he won’t get away next time. He can only hide for so long, anyway, right?”

Dobey doesn’t look appeased, so Starsky trades a look with Hutch. “Anyway, we’re not trying to give the case away. I know that guy  _ isn’t _ a vampire, but Hutch keeps smelling one, so we’re just trying to figure out if there’s one already looking at this so we don’t start firing on a friendly.”

(Not that Starsky thinks  _ any _ vampires are friendly.) 

Dobey sighs. “No, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Dobey nods at the chairs. “Sit down, boys, I’m sorry. I had to deal with one of theirs, today, when I called. Long story short, their council has dusted their hands of this. It’s not a vampire, they say.” 

“But—” Hutch begins. 

“—I told them everything you reported, Hutchinson, including the scent. But they don’t put much stock in that. They think you smelled an innocent passerby.” Dobey shrugs, and checks his watch. “You can be a wolf again in two hours, Hutchinson. I need you to track the killer down. Start with this Nadasy character. Maybe the vampire smell is just to throw you off.” 

Hutch nods, grounded by his pack leader’s sensible plan. “Okay. Okay.” 

He checks his watch to note the time. It’s late afternoon already, and they haven’t even taken a break for lunch. “Thanks, Cap. We’ll get him.” 

Outside in the hall, Hutch says, “How about a late lunch/early dinner, instead? Your pick, as much garlic as you want.” 

“Do we really have time for that?” Starsky asks, but his stomach growls almost audibly to both of them, and he sighs. 

“We gotta wait for the warrant paperwork,” Hutch points out. 

“I guess at least for a hot dog. Then back to the house, with that search warrant, huh?”

Starsky pauses only long enough to submit the paperwork so they can pick it up on the way over to the place once a judge has approved it, and Dobey’s secretary sighs impatiently at his spelling, beginning to correct it automatically.

...

“You gotta be hungry too, huh? We’ve been working both halves of you just as hard,” Starsky says, when they’re seated at the picnic table near a food truck, with a large basket of fries between them. He reaches out under the table and gives Hutch’s knee a squeeze. “Also, uh, sorry about the name this morning. Is there one I can use if we’re ever undercover like that again?”

If there’s one good thing to come out of that Bigfoot debacle a few weeks ago, it’s Hutch realizing he really likes going out to eat with Starsky. It’s hell on his bank account, especially with that week of missed pay and the week of buying for two after he lost the bet, but there’s something very... _ boyfriendy _ about it that Hutch really likes. And even though Starsky pays this time, and they’re out in the open air instead of a restaurant, Hutch is happy. 

Also, he’s eating, which he hasn’t done since early this morning, so he’s  _ very  _ happy, and that answers Starsky’s first question.

“No, that was fine,” Hutch laughs, his cheeks full. “Pretty good, considering it was spur-the-moment. Might be a bit obvious to anyone who knows us, or it might look like you named your dog after me, which would be weird.” 

“Well, since I only have a dog sometimes anyway I always tell people I’m dog-sitting,” Starsky says, tucking into his hotdog-with-everything with a brief pause to express satisfaction at how good it is. Maybe hunger  _ is _ the best seasoning. “Anyway, it’s better than Dog-Hutch, right?”

Hutch laughs. “Uh, yeah.” 

“Hutchie? Kenny?”

“Stop.” 

Starsky finishes his hotdogs in record time, and if there’s a little bit of a playful squabble over the last few french fries, they both win in the end, Starsky leaning back from the picnic table to loosen his belt a notch. “I bet that warrant’s come through. You ready to go get the creeps at this guy’s house?”

“He’s not a vampire, Starsk,” Hutch says again, picking up their trash to deposit it in the bin closest to the car. “The only thing that will give me the creeps is the terrible decor.” 

Hutch stares at Starsky over the roof of his car, thinking way more about how the sunlight glints off Starsky’s sunglasses than the case, and he smiles at him. However, the fact that the garlic has had time to aromate the interior of the car reminds him as he gets in. He wrinkles his nose and glares at Starsky. “When this is over, we’re taking my car to work until you get yours cleaned.” 

(Hutch doesn’t even  _ like  _ driving.)

“Me and thee, and not a single vampire, partner,” Starsky says, looking back at Hutch with a dazzling grin. “Besides, once we catch this guy I can relax. Besides, it kinda reminds me of that great Italian place that used to be under my Grandmother’s, you know? You’d almost get contact burns just from the aroma.”

“Not again!” Hutch yelps. 

Starsky loves even when Hutch is wrinkling up his nose like a grouch, so he leans over and kisses Hutch’s cheek once they’re both in the car, and after radioing in their whereabouts and where they’re headed, Starsky puts the car in gear and heads back to the creepy Victorian house, stopping only to pick up a copy of the search warrant. He leaves the engine running while Hutch goes in to get it.


	4. Chapter 4

As they arrive at the house again, the sun’s setting, and the place looks even worse than it did in daylight. Starsky has to take a minute to get his nerves together, and he digs a flashlight out of the trunk. “How do you wanna do this, partner?”

Hutch was already taking off his belt and shoes, and then remembers they are not arresting a vampire, and shakes his head. Starsky has him keyed up, too. “The usual way. I’ll take the front if you want to go around the back?”

He scents the air just in case, and smells no immediate threats—though, of course, the garlic has his senses pretty busy. “He may not even be home. In which case, we shake down the place, see what we can find about where he might be.”

Hutch puts a hand on Starsky’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Starsky hesitates a moment, and then seems to come to terms with something. He gives Hutch a sort of wishy-washy look. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ll tell you later, alright? Let’s just get this behind us.”

He clicks on the flashlight, telling himself there’s not going to be anyone home, and makes for the back, stepping through the decrepit dead weeds in the yard, and over several obstacles of broken wood and discarded bricks in the side yard, the remains of projects never finished. He tries to keep quiet, anyway, though when he steps on to the deck at the back of the house, it creaks ominously and threatens to splinter until he shifts his weight onto a stronger part.

“I swear,” Starsky grumbles. “I’ve just about had enough of vampires, ghosts, _werewolves_.”

The back door bangs open suddenly, and the man he’d been chasing earlier barrels out, practically directly into Starsky, knocking him flat, and in getting up, he puts his foot _through_ a rotted out portion of the porch. “HUTCH!”

The wolf, apparently having been itching to come out, sprints around the side of the house, howling that he has the scent. The world shifting to black and white is more metaphor than real: there is prey, and predator, and Hutch is the predator, and now that he has the scent of his quarry in his nose, nothing will keep him from making this collar.

The man makes it into the little park behind the house, but here Hutch can run all out, and he pounces on the guy, roughing him up by virtue of the fall more than with teeth or claws. He sinks his teeth into the man’s coat, and gets all four paws on his back. The man is screaming about giving up, to which wolf Hutch can only think, _Well, of course!_

He scents—or remembers he scented—Starsky in some distress, and whines as he realized he hasn’t followed, so he waits. He kind of needs thumbs to cuff this guy, but he isn’t going to let him go.

Hutch is just about to start dragging the guy back to the house by his jacket when Starsky limps up, shaking off the last remains of nettles and thorny plants from the yard, huffing and complaining, even as the man jabbers at him to get Hutch off.

“Yeah, well, you run with the big dogs you find out where the teeth are,” Starsky grumbles, digging his cuffs off his belt. “Okay, you big lummox, good job, now back off a little.”

He gives Hutch a pat, and then turns the man over onto his front to cuff his hands behind his back before hauling him to his feet. If Hutch helps him get up with a few snaps of his jaws or harsh body-checks, it does help, some. More it just makes Starsky’s job a little harder, though Hutch presses on Starsky less when he smells blood on his leg, and wants to check it out further, once they’ve booked this guy.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Starsky mutters. “And I’d suggest you do, or my friend over there might take offense.”

“Your f-friend?” the man asks. “You have a _werewolf_ on the police force?”

Hutch snarls and snaps at him: he’s not very good at things like subtlety or plausible deniability in this form.

“Look, I didn’t kill anyone,” the man stammers, as they drag him to the car. “I was just—”

But here is where Nadasy decides to take his Miranda Rights seriously, and clams up.

Hutch looks at Starsky, and goes back to the darkened porch to find his clothes to return in human shape.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s get you down town and you can chat with a lawyer,” Starsky mutters, dragging Nadasy. “At the very least you got resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer…”

He shuffles Nadasy into the car, and looks up at the house, honestly glad he doesn’t have to go into it. Hutch shuffles out, pulling his coat back on, and Starsky reaches into the car to get ahold of the radio handset. “Let’s get a patrol car out here, and see if they can’t find anything incriminating in there.”

“Is your leg okay?” Hutch asks, ignoring everything but his partner, like there isn’t a perp in their back seat watching him button up his jeans and pull on his shoes. “I smell blood.”

“I got scratched all to hell by my foot going through the porch, but I don’t think it’d be enough to really…” Starsky raises his pants leg and displays a few scratches that are staining his socks red. “That enough to do it?”

Hutch finds himself looking over his shoulder, in spite of himself, and glancing back at Nadasy accusingly, like he might turn out to be a vampire, anyway, somehow. He _wants_ to stay and look the house over, but maybe, just maybe, there is a vampire involved in this, and Hutch doesn’t exactly want his partner chumming the water for it.

“Maybe. Here, I’ll drive, you clean yourself up,” Hutch offers, getting the first aid kit from the glove compartment and going around to the driver’s side. “Just in case.”

Starsky takes the kit, and starts wrapping up, finally starting to relax. “Now who’s getting all worried about it? We got the guy, finally, we can call it a win.”

Of course, it’s never as easy as it seems on the outside, a fact Starsky would remind himself of later when, even as he’s sitting on the curb all the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and for a moment, he’s painfully aware of his own heartbeat. Then a pale green light floods out from the house, and the doors and windows all burst out, suddenly the fury of something unnatural radiating outwards.

Then she’s on them, and Starsky barely has time to process and get his hands up to defend himself while she pins him to the car, her long, cold nails digging into his skin while her iron-like strength seems impossible to resist. He’s shoving with all his might, but all he can see is her teeth—filling her mouth, like a shark or a piranha—coming for him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, is all Hutch can think to himself. Stupid for letting his guard down, stupid for changing back so quickly, stupid for putting Starsky on the side closest to the house!

Then he sees the vampire burst from the house like a banshee, all screams and green light, and pinning Starsky to the car, and now Starsky is all he can think about. He rushes her before he’s even completely changed, punching her in the teeth before his hand becomes claws. He smells Starsky’s blood this time, and she’s too strong, and too angry, and only when he’s fully wolf, clothes still hanging on him, can he wrestle her off of Starsky.

She’s certainly not happy to have a werewolf in her territory, more wild than any vampire he’s ever met, maybe half a wraith or just more powerful, somehow, but she and Hutch claw at each other, howling and fighting in a mad furball, tumbling over each other and wrecking the front lawn. Hutch thinks he recognizes the face from the painting in the dance studio, but that doesn’t really register until later.

Until he hears a shot.

The results are better than Starsky expects, but no less than he was told to, the bullet seeming to burn right through the raging creature that’s wrestling Hutch and rending even his tough skin with her nails. He barely hesitates once the gun is free, just fires, and then when she recoils, already burning, he fires again.

She shrieks and jerks, drawing back, already seeming to burn from the inside out with an unholy sound that sends chills down Starsky’s spine as he leans back against the car, rubbing his neck briefly, as if to check for injury, before he jams the gun back in the holster.  The vampire is dead by the time he reaches Hutch, pulling the wolf against him as much protectively as for his own comfort.

“Hutch, are you okay? Hey, are you okay? Did she get you?” Starsky’s already feeling him over for worse than a few claw marks.

Hutch is still growling, the wolf still baffled at his enemy’s sudden demise. When he’s sure it’s dead, he turns to Starsky, checking him over with his nose and tongue, licking the scratches on his chest and arms, whining. He’s okay, or will be in an hour, just a little scratched up, but Starsky doesn’t have his healing factor.

Nadasy from the back sounds like he’s crying, maybe a little ineffectually. That was his wife? He was really married to... _that_ ?! Suddenly, Hutch feels like this gay werewolf/human romance he’s involved in is _vanilla_.

Starsky has to just sit down for a minute and put his head between his knees. She’d been _so close_ to his neck, and then everything would have been all over, or worse. But he feels okay  with his hands in Hutch’s fur, and Hutch occasionally licking his cheek or his chest, okay enough to radio directly to Dobey for further backup and cleanup, without getting up off the ground just yet.

“Starsky! I thought I told you to—”

“We did, Cap,” Starsky says, miserably. “We found the vampire, we got the guy in custody, but uh. It’s a mess. What do we do about a dead vampire?”

There’s a pause, then a heavy sigh from the other end. “Are you okay, Sergeant? How about Hutch?”

“I think I’m okay. Hutch looks pretty okay,” Starsky says.

Hutch whuffs softly into the receiver to respond, and goes back to lapping up the blood on Starsky, worried, pausing only to drag the first aid kit back out. He needs thumbs, but he thinks he might pass out if he changes forms again so soon.

“I’ll be down there myself, son,” Dobey says. “Fifteen minutes. You boys just stay put.”

Starsky picks up the first aid kit and starts bandaging up his cuts, slowly, one-handed, because he doesn’t want to let go of Hutch for very long, though he hopes werewolf spit isn’t full of bacteria, since he’s just bandaging over stuff Hutch has licked clean. When that’s all done, he sighs out heavy, and rests his face in the ruff of Hutch’s neck.

“Thanks, partner,” he murmurs. “I’m okay. You’re okay. Just take it easy for a minute, we’ll get you some food.”

Hutch whines and leans against Starsky has hard as he dares, tucking his head against Starsky’s shoulder and licking his ear, pinning him against the car like he can protect him from the world this way.

By the time backup arrives, Starsky has himself more or less together, so that he can handle the talkdown and Hutch doesn’t have to try to change again, given how many times he’s done it today already. Dobey comes himself, and surveys the scene in quiet, first looking up at the house, and then at the dead creature on the lawn.

The men and women he arrives with aren’t familiar to Starsky, or even Hutch: other “Society” council members, maybe. Hutch is a bit too tired to care, though he perks up when Dobey hands Starsky two doughnuts and two cups of coffee in a carrier.

“Eat up, boys. I need you to book this gentleman, but don’t worry about getting a statement from him til the morning. Hutch, you’re gonna need thumbs for that. Dr. Kaufman!”

Ah, so they do know someone here, as Dr. Kaufman arrives with her bag and a smile. “Well, I’d say you two are looking better than when I last saw you, but… Well, anyway, let’s get you checked out.”

After the food, Hutch hops inside the Torino to change and get whatever’s left of his clothes back on, while Dr. Kaufman sits Starsky down on the hood of his car to go over the scratches.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks, doing concussion checks while she’s at it.

“Shaken,” Starsky says, letting her check him over. “She scratched me up with her nails something fierce, but didn’t manage to bite me. I don’t _think_ she bit me. Or Hutch.”

Now that the adrenaline’s worn off, he’s going through that shaky stage, so he eats one of the donuts while Dr. Kaufman checks him over, paying careful attention to his neck and shoulders.

“Unbitten,” she declares, and Starsky slumps with relief. “And the rest… well, should heal without stitches, except this one. Hold still, let me get some lidocane in this, and I’ll take care of it.”

Starsky has to look away as she stitches him up, but doesn’t fuss, just reaches for Hutch’s hand when he makes it back out of the car, dressed in rags. “Boy, you look like you had a _ruff_ night, partner, huh?”

Hutch looks at him like he isn't sure why he has sex with him, but is more than secretly glad that Starsky is feeling well enough to joke.

“My night looks like a cakewalk compared to yours, partner,” Hutch replies, but gives Starsky a hand to squeeze while Dr. Kaufman disinfects and stitches a long gash over his collarbone.

“Not that a bite is an undeath sentence, necessarily,” she explains, to keep his mind off the pain. “They just get infected easily, like a cat bite. I'll give you both a round of antibiotics, anyway.”

“You don't turn into a vampire unless you get bitten and drink blood,” Hutch says, “Right?”

“For humans, yes. I'm not sure how it works for werewolves.” Dr. Kaufman grins, teasing, “For some reason, that study won't get past my review board.”

“Well, Hutch, you just drank a bunch of my blood,” Starsky points out. “You licked all my cuts.”

“I told you, it can't happen to werewolves!” Hutch exclaims, though his voice cracks, which might indicate he's worried. “Or, what, you’ll worried I’ll turn into a regular human?”

Dr. Kaufman looks intensely interested at Hutch, until she discerns that he wasn’t bitten, and then rolls her eyes at the pair of them. “Nobody is turning into a vampire tonight.”

“You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that,” Starsky says, earnestly.

“Well, you’re likely to be sore tomorrow, but like everything else it’ll heal up in time,” she says, giving Starsky a pat. She doesn’t bother to stitch Hutch up, seeing that he’s already healing, but gives his worst cuts a good disinfecting. “Now go on and get that poor scrambled up guy to the station, and then go home. Doctor’s orders.”

“You want to check him out, Doc?” Hutch asks. “We're not sure if he's a vampire or—”

“Nice try, but I'm not going in there just to check if he's got a pulse. Have a good night, officers.”

When Starsky and Hutch look around, they realize the body is gone. The Society members must have taken it.

“I'll still drive,” Hutch says more than offers.


	5. Chapter 5

Nadasy does have a pulse, so they book him for resisting and probable accessory, for now, and they leave their paperwork on Dobey’s desk instead of the usual inbox. Hutch eats three more stale doughnuts that are sitting out by the cold coffee and convinces Starsky to let him swing through a 24-hour taco stand, after which he's sure he'll feel better.

“You want anything? How you doing, partner?”

“Shakey,” Starsky admits, but he waves off the taco Hutch offers him, and his silence on the drive while Hutch worries about the fact that Starsky isn’t hungry he gives way to, “I think you should turn me into a werewolf.”

Hutch slams on the brakes, tires squealing, which is okay only because they’re still in the parking lot of the taco place. He stops and looks at Starsky, and picks the bag of tacos up off the floor where it slid.

“I’m sorry, you want me to _what_?”

“I don’t want to be… I don’t wanna get stuck as a vampire or anything else that’s worse,” Starsky says. “You said werewolves can’t become vampires. So I think you should turn me into a werewolf. It’d be easier, and I wouldn’t mind that.”

Hutch splutters for a few moments, baffled at this sudden revelation. Had the vampire scared Starsky that much?

“Starsk,” he tries to begin, with sympathy, then he decides he's too hungry to be rational about this, and pulls over to unwrap a taco.

When he's on his second taco, he tries again: “Starsky, it wouldn't be anything like me or the rest of the pack. Wanting to get bitten by a werewolf so you can't become a vampire is like saying you'd like to have your foot amputated so you don't ever risk breaking it.”

“That’s not true,” Starsky says. “If I lost a foot or broke it, it wouldn’t make us mortal enemies. If she’d bit me, would your pack still want me around at all, huh? Things are already bad enough ‘cause I’m a human, sometimes. And I really, _really_ don’t wanna be a vampire.”

“Starsky, I would never be mortal enemies with you,” Hutch says, though it makes him examine some of his prejudices to say it. “Even if something like that happened, which is so unbelievably unlikely it's—it's not even—”

Hutch takes another bite of his taco, and starts the engine again, which he had let stall out. He just can't believe Starsky would give up his existence as a perfectly normal, healthy, handsome human. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”

Starsky sighs, and nods. “Yeah, let’s just go home. I’m beat.”

Hutch nods, and drives them to his place. Starsky doesn’t object, which he takes as a good sign.

He goes quiet, tired as he’d said he was, and sure he’s said something wrong now, but at least Hutch is still there with him. They make it in the front door, anyway, and Starsky barely gets past the couch before he’s pulling off his coat, discarding his bloodied undershirt so he can wash up in the sink, and then easing into bed.

“Geez, Starsk, she really got you,” Hutch says softly, following Starsky into the bathroom to offer him a towel, and bringing the tacos with them into the bedroom. He washes his own hands and comes back with more antibiotic cream, sitting on the bed next to him. “Can I…?”

When Starsky doesn’t protest or resist, Hutch begins to spread the ointment over the scratches.

“I get it,” Hutch ventures into the silence. “Seeing you like this, knowing the cuts on me will be better by morning—I can see...why. And all that’s keeping me back is how well I know you. How you’d never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, and heck, you even try not to hurt those that do. I know what it would do to you if you hurt anyone innocent, Starsk. And that’s what we’d have to worry about, three nights out of every thirty.”

“You don’t hurt anybody,” Starsky points out. “I guess I’d rather just have it be something I understand, something I’m okay with. But maybe i’m just shaken up after all this. I saw those teeth coming for me and I just didn’t want to be anything like that thing.”

“I know, but you would be, if I bit you,” Hutch reminds. “It’s trading one kind of monster for another, that’s all. It’s something that if you’re not born with it, you and the wolf just fight each other. You might fight _me_.”

“I would never fight you, I just know it.” Starsky sighs, and lets Hutch move him to get at the worst of the cuts, reaching up to idly trace the one that’s got stitches in it over his collarbone. “But that’s all instinct, and you’re right. If it worked out okay this time, and I can protect myself, then we shouldn’t take the risk.”

Hutch is rubbing the side of Starsky’s neck now, soothing, and then he stops. “Hey, _yeah_ . Bullets shouldn’t have been able to stop that thing—what did you _do_?”

“Huggy gave me an out,” Starsky says. “There’s engravings on the clip of my weapon that uh, I’m sure it’s magic. I don’t know how it works otherwise. I was kinda hoping I’d never have to use it.”

Hutch looks impressed, and maybe a little wary, the way Superman looks at Kryptonite. “Huggy gave you that?”

Huggy must like them— _him_ —better than Hutch thought. “That's—”

 _Amazing_ , he was going to say, but Starsky doesn't look like he's happy to have used it. _And that's exactly why I can't turn him into a werewolf._

Hutch sighs, and leans down to kiss Starsky softly. “Thanks for saving my life, partner. I owe you, like, two now.”

With a smile, Hutch gets up to put the ointment away, and get ready for bed himself, showering off for thirty seconds and bringing the bag of tacos to bed. “You sure you don't want any?”

“In the morning,” Starsky says, yawning, laying back and reaching for Hutch instead of food. He pulls his still-wet-from-the-shower boyfriend against his body and leans into him, yawning, and that seems to relax him. “Right now, I just want you here, in case I wake up with nightmares.”

He sounds pretty okay for now, though, and Starsky presses a kiss against Hutch’s neck, careful of the healing scratches on both of them. Turns out, mortal terror really takes it out of a guy.

“Hey, no nightmares,” Hutch admonishes, like it's something Starsky can help. Even as hungry as he is, Hutch is way more interested in Starsky, and sets the bag of food back on the nightstand. He adjusts them so they're a little more open and lying on their backs, with Starsky's head pillowed on his shoulder.

“What if I make you a deal?” Hutch asks in the darkness and stillness.

“A deal?” Starsky asks, squeezing his fingers tighter against Hutch’s shoulder. He sounds like he expects a joke, something to lighten the mood. “Alright, let me hear it.”

“Not a deal. A promise,” Hutch ventures, staring at the darkened ceiling, wishing they were in Starsky’s waterbed, though he’d never admit it out loud. “If you are ever in immediate danger of becoming— _anything_ other than what you are right now, which is a perfectly formed perfectly good human being that I’m completely in love with… I’ll turn you. Better the enemy you know than a—a vampire, or worse.”

Starsky goes quiet for a minute, then leans up over Hutch's chest, and kisses him. Soft, sweet, grateful. “Okay. I'll take it.”


End file.
